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Title

Artist

Year

Pacific State

808 State

1989

Very much done a disservice by being lumped in by some with the whole Madchester movement, 808 State, named after the Roland TR-808 drum machine, were true electronic innovators. The original line-up was Martin Price, Graham Massey and Gerald Simpson, but the later soon went solo as A Guy Called Gerald and made his own mark with Voodoo Ray. Massey and Price brought in two fresh-faced DJs by the name of the Spinmasters, aka Darren Partington and Andy Barker, who also hosted a seminal radio station on Sunset Radio. Their first two albums, Newbuild and Quadrastate, were pioneering records, and their big crossover hit Pacific State still sounds like nothing else. LB

Dancing Queen

Abba

1976

Not so much a celebration of dancing, more a piece of reflective melancholy told from the position of the wallflower, a broken-hearted woman who takes vicarious pleasure in watching a 17-year-old dancer. But it’s the musical mix of light and shade that brings this psychodrama to life, the way in which an effortlessly funky disco beat and Benny Andersson’s triumphant piano pounding are slyly undercut by the neurotic strings and the bittersweet vocal delivery. JL Listen on Spotify

Back in Black

AC/DC

1980

When vocalist Bon Scott died of alcohol poisoning in 1980, AC/DC briefly considered calling it a day. Instead, they recruited singer Brian Johnson and released their best single a few months later. The sky-scraping verse, with its themes of immortality, was a typically audacious way for the band to reaffirm itself. The iconic riff remains a bedroom guitarist’s rite-of-passage, still pertinent in the Guitar Hero age, while the song’s surprisingly sparse arrangement predates modern minimalists such as Chicago rock trio Shellac. JP

Because I Got High

Afroman

2001

Joseph “Afroman” Foreman’s cautionary comedy about the drawbacks of the weed serves as the most effective anti-drug song of the 21st century thus far. A fondness for marijuana leads to an increasingly absurd chain of events in which the protagonist flunks his college class, misses his child support payments, gambles his money away, is unable to perform sexually, loses both his legs in a car accident and is left homeless. JL Listen on Spotify

Uptown Top Ranking

Althea and Donna

1977

Roots reggae was a studiously macho genre: big on righteous finger-wagging, less so on dressing up and getting down. So there was sweet irony in reggae’s only UK No 1 of the era being two women celebrating being young and looking good, turning the disapproving heads of the Rastas as they walk the streets in their “pants and ting (ooh!)”. Written and co-produced by Errol Thompson, in between his day job engineering apocalyptic predictions of fire and brimstone by the likes of Culture. SY Listen on Spotify

Windowlicker

Aphex Twin

1999

Rumour has it that there is a demo version of this song, with Richard D James, aka Aphex Twin, playing the original idea for the song on guitar. Windowlicker might sound like the strangest song ever to gain mainstream appeal, but at its heart lies a really good tune – and that’s why, despite the permanently shifting song structure and the lunatic polyrhythms, it’s become a something of a classic. EW

I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor

Arctic Monkeys

2005

In an explosion of buzzsaw guitar, Arctic Monkeys announced themselves to the world in spectacular style. Insanely addictive, it masked an observational narrative that made the simple act of eyeing a girl up in a nightclub sound like an act of espionage. Most of all, it made everyone who heard it want to dance – and instant megastars of its creators. Tom Jones, Joe Perry and Sugababes have all had stabs at it, cementing its status as the defining indie party track of the modern age. DM Listen on Spotify

Re-Rewind

The Artful Dodger featuring Craig David

1999

Craig David must wish he’d never uttered the words “bo’ selecta!”. But merciless piss-taking from comedian Leigh Francis aside, his second single with two-step production duo the Artful Dodger was one of UK garage’s high points. The track skilfully balanced underground cool (skippety beats and those stuttering “re-re-wind” break downs) with crossover appeal (slick production and chocolatey smooth R&B vocals). It got to No 2 and David went on to a successful pop career. Little did he know the song would come back to haunt him. CC Listen on Spotify

Bourgie Bourgie

Ashford and Simpson

1979

Husband and wife team Ashford and Simpson were both songwriters and artists in their own right. As songwriters they wrote for Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and several Motown artists, where their hits included Ain’t No Mountain High Enough and You’re All I Need to Get By for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. As artists, their biggest hit was the schmaltzy Solid. In between, they wrote some of the greatest, sweeping orchestral disco songs of the late 70s. Bourgie Bourgie, spun regularly by the legendary DJ Larry Levan at seminal New York nightclub Paradise Garage, was pretty much disco perfection. Anyone who still thinks disco equals Saturday Night Fever should do themselves a favour and search this out. LB Listen on Spotify

9pm (Till I Come)

ATB

1999

Apparently, German trance producer André Tanneberger discovered the velvety guitar sound that became the hook on his first single by accident. Lucky for him. Combined with lush strings and vaguely suggestive female vocals, it was utterly infectious and went on to become the first UK trance No 1. Unfortunately, a slew of imitators followed, testing clubbers’ capacity for velvety guitars, lush strings and suggestive female vocals well past breaking point. CC Listen on Spotify

Love Shack

The B-52’s

1989

A seemingly effortless meld of Don Was’s slick big-band production, Fred Schneider’s fairground bark, the piping harmonies of Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson and the dirty blues guitar of Keith Strickland, Love Shack gave the B-52’s their first mainstream hit more than a decade into their career. Inspired by the cabin in Athens, Georgia, where the band wrote their early songs, it was a tribute to original guitarist Ricky Wilson who died of Aids-related illnesses in 1985. GM Listen on Spotify

Yes Sir, I Can Boogie

Baccara

1977

How female Spanish duo Baccara were ever earmarked for pan-European disco success considering their background in flamenco and traditional Spanish songs is anyone’s guess, but in 1977 they managed it with this humongous Eurodisco classic. All breathy vocals and Abigail’s Party seductiveness, if this doesn’t reveal your camp side on the dancefloor nothing will. MR Listen on Spotify

(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)

Beastie Boys

1987

It’s more than likely that all the woes listed by the Beastie Boys have been experienced by all western teenage boys (“Your dad caught you smoking and he said ‘No way!’”), yet Fight for Your Right was only ever intended as a parody of such meathead anthems as Mötley Crüe’s version of Smokin’ in the Boys Room. Its audience, however, didn’t care about irony and revelled in its gloriously crass rebellion without a cause. JP Listen on Spotify

Night Fever

Bee Gees

1978

Indelibly linked with Saturday Night Fever, the Gibbs’ ode to the discotheque is still played at any occasion when a middle-aged man is required to make a spectacle of himself in front of his family and friends. It’s testament to the song’s quality, though, that it’s hard to think of anyone except the self-consciously cool who wouldn’t get their disco fingers pointing as soon as the boys’ famous falsetto kicks in. WD Listen on Spotify

Tighten Up

Archie Bell and the Drells

1968

This jittery funk classic was co-written by Archie Bell’s friend Billy Butler, who invented a dance called “the tighten up” to cheer up Bell after he was drafted to Vietnam. As it topped the US charts in 1968, Bell was in a west German military hospital, recovering from a wound sustained in Vietnam, and subsequent military obligations rather hampered his ability to capitalise on its success, but it remains a floor-filling favourite more than four decades on. JL Listen on Spotify

Night

Benga and Coki

2007

You didn’t have to be a dubstep aficionado to hear this 2007 crossover. The single, hooky electronic tone and devastating bass rumble piped out from teen-held mobile phones on buses all over the world, bridging the worlds of dubstep and grime. Currently usurped in soundsystem dancefloor ubiquity by Warp-signed Mujava’s similarly woozy Township Funk. EW

Big Time Sensuality

Björk

1993

Björk has gone on record as saying this song, the most club-friendly from the Nellee Hooper-produced Debut, is about a nascent, platonic friendship. As it was released at the height of a boom in UK clubbing, it was adopted as an ecstasy anthem and reflected a night out on the hug drug (“We just met and I know I’m a bit too intimate but something huge is coming up”). Further, in the last line Björk exclaims, “I don’t know my future after this weekend,” which will chime with many who “dropped out” due to their E experiences. JB Listen on Spotify

Let’s Start II Dance Again

Hamilton Bohannon

1981

Stevie Wonder’s former drummer Hamilton Bohannon scored his biggest hit with 1978’s Let’s Start the Dance, a massive chunk of irresistible boogie powered by Carolyn Crawford’s roof-raiser vocal. Bohannon recorded three more versions, the best of which was this, featuring a rap from Dr Perri Johnson. The good doc was more radio jock than rapper, but when a man announces himself with “tang, tang, boogie bang, let’s rock the house, let’s shock the house”, what’s not to love? SY

Let’s Dance

David Bowie

1983

Few people know more about making people dance than Nile Rodgers. As the guitarist in Chic, he helped write and produce some of the best songs of the disco era, including Everybody Dance, Le Freak and Good Times. No surprise then that when David Bowie asked Rodgers to produce his second album of the 80s, it resulted in a dancefloor gem. The clipped bass, rhythmic guitar chops and rising chants that telegraph the chorus work in any setting, from wedding discos to fashionable east London bars. CC Listen on Spotify

Self Control

Laura Branigan

1984

Branigan rose to prominence through her contributions to the Flashdance soundtrack in 1983 but is best remembered for Self Control. An Italo disco-style production lends hipness: a languid electronic intro is rudely interrupted by a heavy guitar before snapping into a bouncy synthetic backing for Branigan’s hymn to nocturnal activity. Her dramatic alto voice and content about “creatures of the night” made this a worldwide hit in both pop and disco circles. JB Listen on Spotify

Hang On in There Baby

Johnny Bristol

1974

If Barry White had gargled with Listerine instead of iron filings he may well have sounded like Johnny Bristol. Mainly known as a songwriter and producer at Motown and CBS, although his solo career did not yield many hits, Hang On in There Baby is a song so triumphal that as the chorus takes from the verse you find yourself chuckling at how damn infectious it is. “I’m gonna give you more than you ever dreamed possible,” croons Johnny. It would be churlish to resist. BB Listen on Spotify

Land of 1,000 Dances

Cannibal and the Headhunters

1965

Originally recorded by New Orleans eccentric Chris Kenner and covered, over the years, by Wilson Pickett, Rufus Thomas, the Walker Brothers and Patti Smith, this rambunctious rock’n’roll classic received its definitive version from this Chicano quartet from east Los Angeles. Based around a hollering “naaah/na-na-na/naaaa” riff, it not only references dozens of r’n’b dance crazes (the pony, twist, mashed potato, alligator, hand jive etc) but musically links Afro-Cuban rhythms with early rock’n’roll. JL Listen on Spotify

Love Will Keep Us Together

Captain and Tennille

1975

This huge debut hit from the oddly-named American MOR duo is officially a guilty pleasure. But why anyone should feel guilty about loving this prime slice of FM pop fluff remains a mystery. Written by Howard Greenfield and the perennially underrated Brill Building veteran Neil Sedaka, Love Will … is an emptily joyous and beautifully arranged pop nugget by a duo whose in-demand muso skills saw them moonlight with the Beach Boys, Elton John and Pink Floyd. GM Listen on Spotify

Flashdance

Irene Cara

1983

One of the first “high concept” films of the 80s – female welder finds herself through the medium of dance and legwarmers – was helmed by a title track that found the melodic/melancholic interface at which Abba were so good. Cara’s lyrics marry the film’s subject matter perfectly (the world may be made of steel, but if you take your passion, you can make it happen) with Giorgio Moroder’s rousing music, which is typically synthetic. The first, beat-less 45 seconds are the most stirring and the song deservedly won an Oscar. JB Listen on Spotify

Cocaine Blues

Johnny Cash

1968

If you believe that violent and amoral lyrics were invented by rockers or rappers, this stunning proto-gangsta stomp will be a shock to your system. TJ “Red” Arnall’s 1947 western swing standard is the testimony of Willy Lee, who, high on coke and whiskey, shoots his woman and fails to escape justice. Cash’s Folsom Prison concert version is legendary, but The Man in Black is outdone by one Billy Hughes, whose 1947 version is utterly remorseless. GM Listen on Spotify

Shake Your Tailfeather

Ray Charles

1980

Until 1980 Ray Charles had never recorded this, which was sung first (as Shake a Tail Feather) by the Five Du-Tones, then more famously by James and Bobby Purify. But Charles became synonymous with it courtesy of his cameo in the Blues Brothers film. It’s an unashamedly corny take on the all-singing, all-dancing musical showstopper, with Chicago’s notoriously rough south side erupting as one hot-stepping mass. Ray’s performance was so electric even the two wannabes jumping in front of him couldn’t spoil it. SY

Le Freak

Chic

1978

The story is that Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were turned away from a New Year’s Eve party at the notoriously exclusive Studio 54 nightclub. They retreated to Rodgers’s nearby apartment for a jam session, angrily chanting “fuck off!” over a simple funk riff. The anger was soon replaced by exuberance and was sweetened by soaring strings, chicken-scratch guitar and a disco beat, but it’s Bernard’s throbbing, slapping bassline that compels you to dance. JL Listen on Spotify

Weekend

Class Action

1981

A brilliant cover version of Phreek’s club classic, this electronically reconstituted version featured the original vocalist Chris Wiltshire, was produced by legendary New York figure Bob Blank and remixed by Paradise Garage DJ Larry Levan (who apparently was absent from the studio during “his” remix). The lyrics are perfectly poised between the heartbreak of the verse to the forget-my-man partying of the chorus. Tonight is party time! BB

Machine Gun

Commodores

1974

Scoring their biggest hits with ballads such as Three Times a Lady, Nightshift and Easy, you could be forgiven for remembering Lionel Richie’s breakthrough band as something other than the hard-funk act they actually were. This instrumental funk anthem – the lead track of their debut Motown LP – complete with frenzied keyboard lines, proved to be a disco smash and remains widely used at US sports fixtures today. MR Listen on Spotify

Sweet Soul Music

Arthur Conley

1967

With a voice that sat somewhere between the lofty heights of his biggest idol, Sam Cooke, and the racked emotion of his mentor/manager, Otis Redding, Arthur Conley remains one of the most underrated artists associated with the early years of Stax. In this furious dance track, his biggest chart hit, he praises the soul genre, spotlighting Lou Rawls, Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, James Brown and Wilson Pickett. MR Listen on Spotify

Brimful of Asha

Cornershop

1997

Having been on the indie radar since the early 1990s, when they set fire to a picture of Morrissey outside EMI’s offices, it took a speeded-up remix by Norman Cook to bring Cornershop to the masses, via Tjinder Singh’s tribute to Bollywood’s most prolific playback singer, Asha Bhosle. The east-meets-west dual celebration of the aspirational power of Indian cinema and seven-inch singles (“mine’s on the 45”) struck a chord, reaching No 1 in the UK. PMon Listen on Spotify

Drug Train

The Cramps

1980

As might be expected of a man who once told the audience of a children’s TV show, “I’m on drugs, they’re good drugs,” Cramps frontman Lux Interior knew a thing or two about having a good time. And it sounds like the whole band had a blast on this tribute to getting loaded. Poison Ivy’s psychobilly guitar is suitably uninhibited, while Lux bellows “The drug train, woo woo!”. Sadly, Lux died in February, but evidently, he enjoyed himself while he was here. CC Listen on Spotify

Somebody Oughta Turn Your Head Around

Crystal Mansion

1972

Based around the talents of Philly singer Johnny Caswell (who also had a northern soul hit with You Don’t Love Me Anymore), Crystal Mansion included this song on their debut album, which was imbued with the optimism of Haight-Ashbury rather than the cynicism of Altamont. There’s something about the drum, guitar and vocal combination that is so winning; it usually has the dancefloor grinning like loons within 30 seconds. How can you not love a song that features the couplet: “We’ll build a far-out factory/ And manufacture harmony.” Ace. BB

Da Funk

Daft Punk

1995

Choosing just one party record by Daft Punk is no easy task. You could make a good case for Around the World, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger and One More Time. But it has to be their second single, Da Funk, because it re-wrote the rulebook. At the time, house and techno dominated clubland. Da Funk’s mid-tempo drum slug and barking acid riff didn’t sound like anything else then, and they still don’t now. CC Listen on Spotify

Gabriel

Roy Davis Jr

1998

By the mid-90s this Chicago-based member of acid house innovators Phuture hit a new groove, confecting gospel, soul and a sweet trumpet loop into Gabriel. It was one of the biggest dance tracks of the year, selling more than 250,000 copies and becoming a cornerstone of the UK garage scene that dominated the late 90s. More than 10 years on, it’s now a key revival tune of the emerging funky house scene. EW

Groove Is in the Heart

Deee-Lite

1990

One classic song is all a career really needs, and this perennial party favourite is the track for which the New York trio will always be remembered. At its heart was the simplest of ideas; that falling in love is a bit like dancing. But there’s nothing simple in the delivery, pulling house, funk, disco and hip-hop together into a package that is wild, woozy and very, very strange. DM Listen on Spotify

Just Can’t Get Enough

Depeche Mode

1981

No matter how inventive the rearrangement, how annoying the charity cover version or how ubiquitous its appearance in advertising makes it, there’s no escaping the pure pop thrill of new-wave veterans Depeche Mode’s naive, breakthrough single, the final contribution from early songwriter Vince Clarke (before leaving to form Yazoo and later Erasure) and an anthem in British gay clubs ever since. MR Listen on Spotify

Whip It

Devo

1980

Arguably the best song these new-wave pop surrealists produced that isn’t on their Brian Eno-produced debut album, Whip It was almost a manic alternative to a Will Powers motivational record. Singer-songwriter Mark Mothersbaugh, like Danny Elfman (singer-songwriter from less well-known Devo peers Oingo Boingo), found much greater success after the band split, composing music for a string of movies. MR Listen on Spotify

Soul Makossa

Manu Dibango

1972

Based around a spare bassline and a mesmerising, swirling Afro-funk beat, this seminal single by Cameroonian saxophonist Emmanuel Dibango was picked up by influential New York DJ David Mancuso who started playing it as his nightclub, The Loft. It hit the US charts the next year and was quickly covered by dozens of American artists. A decade later Michael Jackson used the vocal refrain “Mama se mama sa/ Ma-makossa” on Thriller’s Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’, which led to a sizeable out-of-court settlement. JL Listen on Spotify

Cokane in My Brain

Dillinger

1976

One of the weirdest party songs ever, and a huge influence at the time on the fledgling hip-hop scene, this international underground reggae hit is full of funk, fire and ambiguity. Kingston toaster Dillinger, aka Lester Bullocks, switches between Jamaican patois and American accent as he conducts an imaginary conversation between “John” and “Jim” about coke and the spelling of New York over a proto-sample of disco hit Do It Any Way You Wanna by People’s Choice. GM Listen on Spotify

Long Train Runnin’

Doobie Brothers

1973

Not many country-tinged, California rock records can tear up a Balearic dancefloor two decades later, but Long Train Runnin’ is one of those rare songs that have managed to completely transcend genre and era, having been rediscovered by the next generation of DJs. It helped that the song had originally been born out of a loose jam, around a loose guitar riff and laidback funky bassline, which lent itself easily to the Balearic dancefloors of the late 80s and 90s, as did the rhetorical chorus of “without love, where would you be now?”. The later Bananarama cover, however, featuring the Gyspy Kings on guitar, is not a Balearic classic, trust me. LB. Listen on Spotify

Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick

Ian Dury and the Blockheads

1978

Chas Jankel’s musical nous and Ian Dury’s wordsmithery combine to perfection on this blast of brilliant nonsense that sold nearly a million on its initial release. The music is a thick funk gumbo (largely down to Norman Watt-Roy’s heavy, busy bassline) as Dury rhymes the likes of “Borneo” with “Bordeaux”, “Eskimo” with “Arapaho” and “Milan” with “Yucatan” before breaking into the gloriously nutty chorus. Davey Payne’s double saxophone break is manic; the Blockheads never hit these heights again. MW

Boogie Wonderland

Earth, Wind and Fire

1979

Boogie Wonderland captures the essence of late-70s disco so perfectly it should be sealed and preserved for future generations. The winning formula was simple: take a bunch of veterans who knew which way the wind blew (EWF were former jazz-funkers, backing singers the Emotions were soul stars at Stax), add a song that celebrated the disco itself and a barrage of snares and horns that lit up like glitterballs. The song has since become a mainstay of 70s revival nights and film soundtracks. SY Listen on Spotify

Talking With Myself

Electribe 101

1988

Balearic wasn’t originally about Spanish guitars or chill out. It was about dancing to records that weren’t necessarily dance records. Talking With Myself by Anglo-German synth-pop five-piece Electribe 101 is a perfect example. The moody, mid-paced tempo, Mission Impossible sample and lead singer Billie Ray Martin’s minor-key vocal seemed like the perfect fit for an 80s wine bar soundtrack. However, transplanted to a balmy, open-air dancefloor in Ibiza, the song became a sultry, sophisticated gem. CC Listen on Spotify

Livin’ Thing

Electric Light Orchestra

1976

For all their well-documented naffness, ELO pulled it out of the bag every now and then. Witness the brilliant Mr Blue Sky and Living Thing, once voted the ultimate “guilty pleasure” song of all time. The latter, which sounds like it was written using all the major chords, couldn’t be more perfect for slightly ironic twirly dancing at a family do or a summer barbecue. Cheesy or not, it would be a terrible thing to lose. WD Listen on Spotify

The Clapping Song

Shirley Ellis

1965

Bronx soul songstress Ellis wrote her footnote into music history with this blistering novelty dance hit. Co-written with her husband Lincoln Chase, this go-go dance classic seems like an innocent playground skipping-rope rhyme set to a tough, brassy, post-Motown arrangement. But historians have posited the theory that the infectious chant about monkeys chewing tobacco and going “to heaven in a little rowboat” derives from coded slave songs about escaping bondage on the underground train to the Mississippi river. GM

Be Faithful

Fatman Scoop featuring the Crooklyn Clan

1999

Every DJ has an emergency record, a track that gets the party started in a hurry. In 1999, hip-hop jocks in trouble reached for Be Faithful. New York production duo Riz and Sizzahandz sampled the guitar from Faith Evans’s 1998 single Love Like This and added plenty of extra low end, while Fatman Scoop hyped the crowd with nonsense such as, “Can I get a ‘what what’?” Far from sophisticated, but it never failed. In 2003, it was re-released and went straight to No 1. CC

Doctor Love

First Choice

1977

Following guitarist Norman Harris and much of Philadelphia International’s MFSB orchestra to New York’s Salsoul stable in the disco boom, this trio are probably regarded today as underground disco’s best-loved girl group. Singer Rochelle Fleming needs only one man to cure her from the pain of her disastrous former encounters in love, the good Doctor. The instrumental break, with its irresistible, twinkling keys, has been sampled countless times in house music and is a delight to dance to every time it’s aired. MR

The Gnu

Flanders and Swann

1959

This exquisite three-minute gem serves as a fine introduction to this duo’s witty wordplay, well-crafted rhymes and surreal situations. Over Donald Swann’s genteel piano accompaniment, Michael Flanders introduces us to a talking gnu who casts a critical eye over the irregularities of the English language (“I’m a g-nu/ How do you do?/ I’m the g-nicest work of g-nature in the zoo”) while pouring scorn on the pompous humans who continually misidentify him (“Call me bison or okapi and I’ll sue”). JL Listen on Spotify

Think About It (What Is Wrong With the World Today)

Flight of the Conchords

2008

In which the peerless Kiwi “digi-folk” duo pay homage to a certain strain of “protest song” – the vague, directionless, apolitical soul ballad exemplified by Buffalo Springfield, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, the Stylistics and any number of acid jazz copyists. As FOTC describe an inner-city dystopia where kids are “killing each other with knives and forks” and “getting diseases from monkeys” over the chords from Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology), it’s clear that they’re actually rather good blue-eyed soul crooners. JL Listen on Spotify

One Nation Under a Groove

Funkadelic

1978

George Clinton was always as much cult as band leader, so it’s only right that his biggest hit aped the language of the pledge of allegiance. Smooth and mellifluous where p-funk was so often about cartoonish splashes of colour, One Nation is held together by the surprisingly melodic chorus. It starts mid-groove, as if the song has no beginning or end, but is simply a never-ending party the listener had dropped in on. “Here’s a chance to dance our way out of our restrictions,” sings Clinton. Funk as resistance movement. SY

Biology

Girls Aloud

2005

After sinking to a low in 2004 with insipid covers of I’ll Stand By You and Jump (For My Love), Xenomania saved the girls from going down the dumper with the Chemistry album and this incredible single. It outlandishly boasts a surfeit of melody and not one but three choruses. The lyrics warn sisters of the perils of desire delivered at a breathless pace: “You fall on your knees and the geek at your feet says you’re neat.” JB Listen on Spotify

Dare

Gorillaz

2005

Dare was the tipping point for Gorillaz, the moment when the music eclipsed the annoying virtual band concept. It starts with a Shepard scale, an auditory illusion that sounds like it’s continually rising, but in fact never gets any higher. A lot like the song itself. There’s no verse-chorus structure, just Damon Albarn’s falsetto, fuzzy synth bass and a guest appearance from Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder on loop, but the excitement keeps on building throughout. Clever stuff. CC Listen on Spotify

All I Want for Christmas Is a Dukla Prague Away Kit

Half Man Half Biscuit

1986

Aside from a passing reference in the Undertones’ My Perfect Cousin, Subbuteo had been criminally overlooked in rock’s canon. Until, that is, Wirral-based pop-culture obsessives Half Man Half Biscuit wrote this keenly observed reminiscence about playing in a tournament at a friend’s house, after his Scalextric failed to perform. A decade on, you could still hear the pain in: “You’d always get palmed off with a headless centre-forward, a goalkeeper with no arms and a face like his.” PMon

Rokit

Herbie Hancock

1983

One of the most influential figures in modern jazz, Herbie Hancock was quick to embrace the nascent New York rap scene. Displaying a surprising lack of virtuosity on Hancock’s part, Rokit centred around the trade off between an instantly recognisable synth line and some then groundbreaking scratch work from DJ Grand Mixer D.ST. Barely charting in the US, it went top 10 in Britain, soundtracking a thousand ill-advised lino-based excursions into breakdancing. CCat

WFL (Think About the Future)

Happy Mondays

1989

As the acid house revolution gripped the nation, Happy Mondays, in what was still quite an unusual move, let DJ Paul Oakenfold loose on their track Wrote For Luck. “I knew that rhythms in rock records never worked,” Oakenfold later reflected, “so it had to be more rhythmic, especially the bottom end.” Oakenfold changed the bassline and drums, with a loop from NWA, and brought Shaun Ryder’s vocals up in the mix. With layers of Mark Day’s swirling guitar and Paul Davis’s dreamy keyboard lines over the top, the end result was an elongated, spaced-out ecstatic dancefloor smash which reflected the euphoric mindstate of many on the dancefloors in 1989. LB Listen on Spotify

Back to My Roots

Richie Havens

1981

A cross genre, cross era, stone cold Balearic classic. Back to My Roots was originally written and recorded by Lamont Dozier – one-third of the legendary Holland-Dozier-Holland Motown production team – for his solo album Peddlin’ Music On The Side. But it’s the Richie Havens version from 1981 that most DJs keep in their record boxes as an absolute guaranteed dancefloor filler to reach for in case of emergency. The long opening piano riff, funky wah-wah guitar, percussion from Sly and the Family Stone session legend Andy Newmark and gospel backing vocals, all build to one undeniable deep groove. Danny Krivit’s recent re-edit is worth searching out as well. LB Listen on Spotify

Over and Over

Hot Chip

2006

Extolling the virtues of simple, insistent repetition “like a monkey with a miniature cymbal”, Hot Chip’s DFA-produced calling card layered Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard’s deadpan harmonies over a relentless, minimal motorik, recalling both New Order’s Blue Monday and Kraftwerk’s Autobahn. With a faint air of menace loitering beneath the surface, it’s mesmerising qualities drew punters to the dancefloor like the Pied Piper leading rats to their death. CCat Listen on Spotify

Jump Around

House of Pain

1992

Irish-American rappers House of Pain always played second fiddle to west-coast contemporaries Cypress Hill, who never fashioned anything as great as Jump Around. From the fanfare that launched a thousand cannabis habits to the squeal that ushers in every jump (sampled from Prince’s Gett Off), it united college halls and rock clubs long after they sank into insignificance. DM Listen on Spotify

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life

Indeep

1982

It was some years before the notion of DJ as saviour would really take hold, and when it did, it wasn’t radio but club jocks who were the objects of adoration. Arriving at the fag-end of disco, Last Night … was all Chic-y guitar chops, dub-funk bassline and inspired sound effects (telephone, flushing toilet, car brakes). But the theme is a simple one of heartbreak cured by music, a statement of faith in the regenerative powers of the great song. SY

Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough

Michael Jackson

1979

A lot happened in the four years between Michael Jackson’s 1975 album Forever, Michael and the follow-up, Off the Wall. Disco had crossed into the mainstream and he’d grown from a boy into a young man. Like all young men, he had sex on his mind. “Touch me and I feel on fire,” he sings in a pure falsetto over a pulsing bass groove from Louis “Thunder Thumbs” Johnson. Years later, a similar request led to a courtroom. CC Listen on Spotify

Off the Wall

Michael Jackson

1979

If Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough is the populist party choice from Michael Jackson’s fifth album, Off the Wall, disco connoisseurs prefer the title track. Written by British musician Rod Temperton, who went on to compose Thriller, it’s built on a nervous, high-pitched bassline. The tension is released when the song shifts into a lower key for the chorus and Jackson sings, “Tonight, got to leave the nine to five up on the shelf/ And just enjoy yourself.” Pure class. CC Listen on Spotify

I Love Rock’n’Roll

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

1982

Seventies beat-poppers the Arrows originally wrote and recorded this hymn to the devil’s music to worldwide indifference. Sassy ex-Runaway Joan Jett liked it so much she covered it twice, most successfully in 1982, when she condensed rock’n’roll’s intricate magic into a pounding three-chord strut. Even Britney armed with a vocoder could not match this for vitality. DM

Nightclubbing

Grace Jones

1981

Nightclubbing was written by David Bowie and Iggy Pop and appeared on Iggy’s 1977 solo debut, The Idiot. But Grace Jones claimed the song for herself when she made it the title track of her fifth album. The original is boozy, dog-end-of-the-night rock. Jones, a regular on the glitzy late-70s/early-80s New York club scene, injects it with icy glamour, her contralto voice slinking with feline grace around the one-finger piano line and Sly Dunbar’s echo-drenched percussion. CC Listen on Spotify

Williams Blood (Aeroplane remix)

Grace Jones

2008

After a triumphant gig at last year’s Meltdown festival, Grace Jones comeback album was eagerly anticipated. Disappointingly, most of it, like Williams Blood, turned out to be quite pedestrian. That was until the up-and-coming Belgian cosmic disco duo and remixers du jour Aeroplane worked their magic on it, turning it into a slow burning, glitteringly futuristic disco smash that built into a intense euphoric crescendo. Unbelievably, the remix was initially rejected, but word of mouth, or word of internet blogs, spread, and it’s now available. Aeroplane’s debut album is due this summer. LB

Cocktails for Two

Spike Jones and His City Slickers

1944

The original 1934 version was a genteel ballad that celebrated the end of prohibition, a time where the “carefree and gay” were free to drink at a “romantic rendezvous”. Spike Jones gleefully pushed this gaiety to extremes, punctuating his 100mph arrangement with various hooters, whistles, honking horns and belching singers to create a symphony of silliness. It’s the perfect example of how Jones created comedy records where the hilarity was sonic rather than lyrical. JL Listen on Spotify

Transmission

Joy Division

1979

Joy Division were never perceived as a party band , but this two-chord bludgeoning, with Ian Curtis militaristically demanding that we “dance, dance, dance, dance, dance to the radio!”, is as close to a knees-up as they ever came. The clattering drum pattern has long become a staple of any indie-disco hit and the rudimentary skills with which the whole thing is rendered adds to the sense of reckless hedonism. JP Listen on Spotify

We Are Your Friends

Justice v Simian

2002

Few people had heard of Simian – Arctic Monkeys producer James Ford’s old band – or the first single from their 2002 album, We Are Your Friends, until noisy French dance duo Justice remixed it. They kept the raw-throated chorus, but everything else went to make way for the best disco-house bassline since Daft Punk’s Around the World. The Skins generation adopted it as their anthem and Justice as their house band. CC Listen on Spotify

Silly Games

Janet Kay

1979

Lovers rock was the first flowering of homegrown black British music and big sister to everything that came after, from jungle to UK garage through to grime and funky house. Produced by the dizzyingly talented producer Dennis Bovell, Silly Games was a huge European hit and big in the rollerdiscos. Kay hits ludicrously high notes, Bovell spaces the whole thing out and the end result is otherworldly UK street heaven. EW Listen on Spotify

Louie Louie

The Kingsmen

1963

Written by Richard Berry in 1955, Louie Louie had lost something in translation by the time the Kingsmen recorded their take on it. So wholly unintelligible was Jack Ely’s vocal that the FBI briefly investigated the band, fearing (nonexistent) obscene lyrics. Today it is acknowledged as a classic, occasionally credited as the first punk record, and cited by Kurt Cobain as a direct influence on Smells Like Teen Spirit. JP Listen on Spotify

Golden Skans

Klaxons

2007

A golden scan is a light used in nightclubs. There’s not a lot to else to say about it, which might explain why, having named a song after one, Klaxons ended up singing, “Set sail from sense, bring all her young/ Set sail from where we once begun.” Still, the vocal harmonies in the chorus are irresistible and, at just under three minutes long, it’s perfectly weighted. One of the reasons why the band’s debut album, Myths of the Near Future, won the Mercury prize in 2007. CC Listen on Spotify

My Sharona

The Knack

1979

With punk waning and power-pop on the rise, the Knack triumphed with this deathless guitar stomper. Blondie producer Mike Chapman layered the beginning: tom-tom drums first, then bass, followed by the crashing guitar. Singer Doug Fieger’s erstwhile fiancee Sharona Alperin was the muse who caused him to stutter and whoop his way through the salacious lyrics and replace her name with an exclamation in all the excitement: “My my my I yi woo!” JB Listen on Spotify

Numbers/Computer World 2

Kraftwerk

1981

The blueprint for Detroit’s otherworldy techno music, particularly its nu-electro element, is contained within these two adjoining tracks, which are traditionally played together, consecutively in dance clubs (it is also a significant record to the hip-hop community). A harsh, breakbeat drum pattern underpins the multilingual recitation of numbers, before the keyboard refrain from Computer World is reprised, causing an emotive response from dancers that’s rarely equalled in electronic music. MR Listen on Spotify

Din Daa Daa

George Kranz

1984

Din Daa Daa was No 1 on the US dance chart in 1984. However, German percussionist George Kranz owes his clubland immortality to DJ Alfredo, resident at Ibiza’s iconic Amnesia nightspot in the late 80s, when the song became a Balearic classic. The words of the title are looped up, while Kranz, who has a serious case of onomatopoeia, echoes the drum fills (“Rat-ta-ta-ta-toom!”). Then the track explodes with a strident synth chord. Just try not dancing. CC

Upside Down

Fela Kuti

1976

When American political activist Sandra Smith (later Isidore) introduced visiting Nigerian musician Fela Kuti to the writings of Malcolm X and the philosophies of the Black Panther party in 1969, she could never have imagined the effect. The subsequent radical, angry politics of Africa’s first musical megastar informed most of his lyrics, including this blistering, near 15-minute epic, describing pan-African disorganisation. Sung by Isidore, you’d be hard pushed to find a better record to dance to. MR Listen on Spotify

Jimmy Jimmy Aaja

Bappi Lahiri/Parvati Khan

1982

Recently sampled by MIA, this Parvati Khan-vocalled glitzy dance nugget is the sound of disco fever sweeping Bollywood. In its original setting (in the film Disco Dancer), it cures the Jimmy of the title of his disco phobia after his mother is electrocuted by an electric guitar (don’t ask). Yet even without the surreal plotlines, Bappi Lahiri’s Bontempi-electro settings and infectious Abba string stabs continue to help the most committed wallflowers get their bosh on to this day. MM Listen on Spotify

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

Cyndi Lauper

1983

One of pop’s most ecstatic classics, this debut single and huge global hit from former Blue Angel singer Lauper is also one of pop’s greatest feminist statements. In an echo of Aretha Franklin’s dramatic female empowerment reworking of Otis Redding’s Respect, Girls … was written by new-wave popster Robert Hazard from an entirely male perspective. Lauper changed the gender of the lyric and transformed it into an electro-pop call-to-arms for the right to hen party. GM Listen on Spotify

Pow! (Forward)

Lethal Bizzle

2004

In 2004, Pow! (Forward) reached No 11, despite being banned by mainstream radio stations, which objected to gun-related lyrics such as, “Don’t care how you feel/ I will be cocking back my steel.” What’s more surprising is that grime DJs stopped playing it, too. It was nothing to do with the gunplay metaphors, but because the stabbing synths, handclaps and tag-team raps caused such an extreme reaction in clubs that the owners thought a fight was breaking out. Three minutes of pure adrenaline. CC Listen on Spotify

LFO

LFO

1990

Old-school bassheads will remember fondly the purple sleeves and raw, outer-galactic bass’n’bleeps of early Warp records releases. LFO provided the fifth release on the label, which was recorded in the basement studio of Leeds rave emporium The Warehouse and was played, on C90, at the club before being signed. It sold 130,000 copies and went to No 12 in the charts. Brutal and brilliant. EW

Can’t Stand Me Now

The Libertines

2004

From a poetic point of view, the release of Can’t Stand Me Now could not have been more perfect. From an intra-band harmony perspective, it couldn’t have been worse. Released just as Pete Doherty and Carl Barât’s tumultuous relationship was beginning to finally fall apart due to Doherty’s drug habit, you can hear the spite in the love me/hate me lyrics. A No 2 hit at the time, it remains the most famous mission statement from the London could-have-beens. WD Listen on Spotify

Is It All Over My Face

Loose Joints

1980

Known primarily as a cult contributor to the leftfield disco scene, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Arthur Russell’s work across several genres of avant garde music has been rediscovered and critically acclaimed since his death from Aids in the early 90s. This hypnotic and truly unforgettable slice of disco voodoo was salvaged from tempestuous collaborative studio sessions by Paradise Garage DJ Larry Levan, whose female-voiced remix is now classed as the definitive version. MR

Love Loves to Love Love

Lulu

1967

Despite having recorded a sublime version of Here Comes the Night with genius American r’n’b producer Bert Berns several years earlier (predating Them’s version), it wasn’t until Scottish singer Lulu teamed up with UK producer Mickie Most that the hits began to flow. This slightly psychedelic pop-funk track was the first, followed shortly by Shout, and is instantly recognisable for its fuzzed guitar intro, which Fatboy Slim famously sampled for Santa Cruz. MR Listen on Spotify

Pop Muzik

M

1979

Pop Muzik was produced and helmed by pop situationist Robin Scott and made in Paris by an all-star cast that included the wunderkind keyboard player Wally Badarou, who provides its bubbling swing. It had the high gloss of the Human League with a towering kickdrum that sounded like it was carved out of solid granite. The lyrics are pure bubblegum (“try some buy some fee-fi-fo-fum”), the result dancefloor candy floss. BB Listen on Spotify

Cross the Tracks (We Better Go Back)

Maceo and the Macks

1975

Bebop-influenced saxophonist Maceo Parker tried to leave his longstanding place within James Brown’s band several times over the years (for a while he even joined the Parliament/Funkadelic collective), but always returned having failed to secure equal success solo or as a band leader. This insane funk instrumental, heavy with Moog synthesizer, allegedly played by Brown, was an integral party piece of the early hip-hop movement and remains a soundsystem curveball to this day. MR Listen on Spotify

There But for the Grace of God

Machine

1979

In between the early success he enjoyed alongside his brother in Dr Buzzard’s Savannah Band and forming his own stage persona as Kid Creole, Tommy Browder – aka August Darnell – found time to lend his almost peerless satirical songwriting skills (not to mention his considerable production abilities) to this female-voiced disco anthem. Critiquing social attitudes of the time, the often misunderstood lyrics see new parents deciding to leave the Bronx in favour of “somewhere far away, with no blacks, no Jews and no gays.” MR

Beautiful Stranger

Madonna

1999

Pop queen Madonna rounded off the 1990s in fine style when, following successful collaboration on the Ray of Light album, she reunited with British producer William Orbit for this theme to the second Austin Powers movie. Inspired by the film’s 60s theme, the pair eschewed their previous dance styles in favour of an understated, Mamas and the Papas-sampling, guitar-led groove. Although successful on the UK charts, this song wasn’t released as a single in the US. Listen on Spotify

Everybody

Madonna

1982

Ubiquitous as she now is, Sire records actually left Madonna’s face off the cover of her debut single, believing people would have trouble swallowing this white-hot slab of robo-pop if they knew it was sung by a white girl. Not that it stopped Ms Ciccone becoming a huge name on New York’s club scene and forging a manifesto she’d still be perfecting 30 years on. Her third single, Holiday, would refine her approach, but it was Everybody that got the people dancing to her tune. DM Listen on Spotify

Holiday

Madonna

1983

Madonna’s third single and first major hit still stands as her dumbest song. Minimal lyrics, no sexual or religious subtexts… not even a middle eight. But it remains one of her most-loved tunes, a pure disco hit written by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens. With its helium vocal, synthetic disco backing and our own images of young, bag-lady chic Maddy chucking herself enthusiastically about on TOTP, Holiday has a breezy innocence that neither Madonna nor 80s pop ever quite recaptured. GM Listen on Spotify

Rock Your Baby

George McCrae

1974

Many claim to have invented disco. But there’s no debate about disco’s first gigantic international hit. Rock Your Baby sold 11m copies worldwide and, like so many seminal songs, came together by accident. Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch’s elegant seduction anthem was recorded as a demo in Miami’s TK studios in 45 minutes, buoyed by the lyrical rhythm guitar of KC and the Sunshine Band’s Jerome Smith. Falsetto soul crooner McCrae just happened to be around. Disco had arrived. GM Listen on Spotify

Buffalo Gals

Malcolm McLaren

1983

After messy fallouts with the Sex Pistols, Bow Wow Wow and Adam Ant, McLaren spent months wandering aimlessly around southern Africa, the American south and New York researching an album provisionally titled Folk Dances of the World. Producer Trevor Horn finally took charge, weaving these disparate influences into the album Duck Rock. Its magnificent lead single knitted together disembodied rapping, turntable quacks, Fairlight fanfares and hoedown idiocy, helping to introduce hip-hop to the mainstream. JL Listen on Spotify

Move On Up

Curtis Mayfield

1970

In 1970, former Impression Mayfield was making a name for himself as a pioneer of gritty urban realism. Move On Up, however, reads more like a motivational pep talk: Mayfield’s super-sweet vocals imploring the listener to “remember your dreams are your only schemes” over an irresistibly kinetic mix of Latin rhythms, orchestral funk and Chicago horns. Nabbing the central hook for 2005’s Touch the Sky, Kanye West reintroduced the world to Move On Up’s relentlessly positive charms. CCat Listen on Spotify

White Lines (Don’t Do It)

Grandmaster Melle Mel

1983

It wasn’t just White Lines’ billing (originally credited to Grandmaster and Melle Mel, to imply Flash was involved) that was confusing. Although the title and much of the lyric indicate an uncompromising anti-drug song, the record was more than a little ambivalent, as shown in the repeated sniffing and their excitable way with the word “high”. The soundtrack to a million knowing winks on the dancefloor. SY

Kids

MGMT

2008

Brooklyn-based duo MGMT emerged in 2007 with an intoxicating blend of squelching electro-funk, wiggy progisms and 70s pop-rock sensibilities. Produced by Flaming Lips associate Dave Fridmann, Kids remains their signature tune; its mix of gurgling synths, pounding drum machines and make-believe lyrics overcoming hints of hipster irony to rock harder than a Shoreditch warehouse party. Much to the band’s chargrin, the track was recently appropriated by French premier Nicolas Sarkozy for use at political rallies. CCat Listen on Spotify

Paper Planes (DFA remix)

MIA

2008

Already one of recent pop sensation MIA’s best tracks, Paper Planes was dragged from its dreamy orbit by NYC post-punk disco revivalists DFA and thrust into the centre of the dancefloor by way of their equally impressive remix. Sparse handclaps and a strutting, mid-tempo disco beat confidently mark this as a current classic with serious shelf life. MR Listen on Spotify

4 My People

Missy Elliott

2001

Though we can’t say for sure whether it’s about ecstasy consumption, this club track, best heard as a Basement Jaxx remix, is taken from the album Miss E ... So Addictive (on the cover the E is circled) and is heralded by Elliott hollering, “This is for my motherfucking club heads!” In the song, Missy initially appears all coy after spotting a fella she likes across the dancefloor and so opts for an orange juice and to “go X it out”. A little while later she’s buying everybody drinks, wants to lick the fella’s face and demands they strip off their clothes. Must have been that orange juice, eh? JB Listen on Spotify

Bedazzled

Dudley Moore and Peter Cook

1967

This stand-out moment from the film of the same name sees the satanic Peter Cook transform into a proto-punk crooner – somewhere between John Lydon and Berlin-era Bowie – mirthlessly outlining his utter lack of interest in a woman who is hopelessly in love with him (“I’m not available. You fill me with inertia,” he drawls). But it’s Dudley Moore’s instrumental backing – all phased psych-rock drums, ye-ye girls and avant jazz chord changes – that makes this such an exquisite pop parody. JL

Hot in Herre

Nelly

2002

“Good gracious ass is bodacious,” raps the southern short-ass on this steamy jam, before encouraging said hottie to get undressed. “It’s getting so hot I’m gonna take my clothes off,” she obliges, rather too quickly, over a slinky keyboard line and a jerky beat, courtesy of the Neptunes back when Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo were still intent on weirding out the charts. Hot in Herre may have lacked subtlety and spelling ability but it more than made up for it in the party-starting stakes. MM Listen on Spotify

True Faith

New Order

1987

The year before the acid house explosion, New Order were perfectly placed to understand the power of the new drug that would fuel the scene. They owned a nightclub, The Hacienda, for starters, and their music was heavily influenced by visits to New York nightspots, with producer Stephen Hague appropriating a Jellybean style for True Faith. Sumner nailed the ecstasy experience in the opening lines: “I feel so extraordinary/ Something’s got a hold of me/ I get this feeling I’m in motion/ A sudden sense of liberty.” Peter Hook’s bassline and the rich melody were designed to enhance their new-found clandestine experience. JB Listen on Spotify

Short People

Randy Newman

1977

The funniest things about Newman’s only pop hit (which was only kept from the US No 1 spot by the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive) are not to do with the song. Despite its diatribe against the vertically challenged being an obvious satire on discrimination – starring the line, “We don’t want no short people round here” – many believed that Newman’s Disney-esque ditty was serious. Maryland went as far as drafting legislation to ban the song from being played anywhere in the state. GM Listen on Spotify

I’m in the Mood for Dancing

The Nolans

1979

Anyone who drunkenly selects this hen-party favourite at a karaoke night will quickly realise that it’s not as simple as it sounds. The identikit disco drums are overlaid with a fiendishly complicated series of chord changes that might have impressed Chopin. The song modulates after every chorus, first up, then down, then up again. Respect is due, Ms Bernie Nolan. JL Listen on Spotify

Cigarettes and Alcohol

Oasis

1994

Never was hedonism so succinctly articulated. Britain wasn’t much fun in 1994 under John Major, encouraging a boozy, devil-may-care attitude. This shameless, streamlined T-Rex steal heralded the impending sea change that was Britpop in Liam’s cry: “You gotta make it happen.” JP

Got Your Money

Ol’ Dirty Bastard

1999

Get the girls on the floor and you’ve got yourself a party. Got Your Money is a hip-hop party all on its own. Produced by the Neptunes when they were at their peak, MCed by the sadly departed Ol’ Dirty Bastard and featuring Kelis, Got Your Money was an all-star cast of late 90s talent – and it shows. A tune that never fails to ignite a party. BB

Hey Ya!

OutKast

2003

Despite lyrics worthy of Morrissey at his most morose (“If nothing is for ever then what makes love the exception?”), this all-too-familiar story of a stalling relationship is set to an iconoclastically joyous backing: Funkadelic synths, a Prince-like rhythm and a stupidly addictive, Fisher-Price-keyboard figure. Besides exhibiting the ever-enjoyable sound of André 3000 at his most cocksure, this is one of the great “bollocks to love – let’s dance!” songs. JP Listen on Spotify

Acid Tracks

Phuture

1987

The record that named a movement was created by a series of accidents. Roland’s 303 was a synth that failed to recreate the bass guitar sound (its intended purpose) but threw out a wall of squiggly noise unlike anything else. Played off anonymous tape by DJ Ron Hardy, Acid Tracks was christened by his clubbers (its creators Phuture had provisionally called it In Your Mind), likening the 12-minute electronic maelstrom to a trip. Adopted by British clubbers, the subsequent revolution lived longer than this extraordinary, pummelling beast of a record. SY

Papa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag

Pigbag

1981

In which this strange collective – comprising various Cheltenham-based post-punkers with links to Mark Stewart and the Pop Group, among them future trip-hop pioneer Nellee Hooper – managed to take a wiry punk-funk bassline, a free-jazz saxophone freakout and the ancient riff from the Tarzan movies and somehow turn it into a Top 3 hit. Even weirder is the fact that this punk-jazz oddity remains a popular soundtrack at dozens of football grounds every Saturday. JL Listen on Spotify

Stop Bajon (Primavera)

Tullio De Piscopo

1984

A beautifully produced, early-80s pop hit from Italian session drummer Tullio De Piscopo, beloved by legions of international dance fans despite most non-Italians being completely oblivious to the confusing, but ultimately optimistic message delivered within its lyrics. Probably the best-loved example of Balearic beat music, it remains a dancefloor classic to this day. MR Listen on Spotify

Witness the Pitness

Pitman

2002

The alter-ego of Nottingham producer Styly Cee, Pitman is the hip-hop heckler, the faux miner shouting abuse from the back of rap’s eternal game of show-and-prove. Witness the Pitness is a take on the Roots Manuva classic that belches out insults at Adam F and the Streets (“We don’t give a frig about your frigging aerial/ Stick it up your arse with your pirate material”) in the manner of a pub-crawling Viz character. The more witless the invective, the funnier it gets. SY

Streams of Whiskey

The Pogues

1984

In which Shane MacGowan’s twin obsessions of Brendan Behan and dangerously heavy drinking are laid bare. This was the Pogues in their early, full Celtic punk mode, a riotous tin-whistle-and-accordion stomp that revealed nothing of their subtler side, but secured their status as every piss-up’s ideal accompaniment. At the time, MacGowan’s own problems were but a twinkle in the bottom of a bottle, and the video depicting him popping up out of a wheelie bin seemed a good joke, not a prediction. SY Listen on Spotify

Jump (For My Love)

The Pointer Sisters

1984

The versatile Sisters recorded soul, disco and country songs in the 70s but hit a commercial purple patch in the mid-80s, with Jump (For My Love) their apex. A masterclass in dance-pop, it combines Chic-like disco-funk with a synthetic new-wave sound and lyrics designed to send the dancefloor skywards. The middle eight, especially, is astonishing, the Sisters festooned with fireworks from the production desk. In comparison, Girls Aloud’s 2004 cover is lifeless. JB Listen on Spotify

Brass in Pocket

The Pretenders

1979

If rock music’s female singers had their vocal styling and the attitudes contained therein made flesh you would pity the figure depicted by Joplin’s fragility, cross the road to avoid Patti Smith’s, and whimper in reverence to PJ Harvey’s. Chrissie Hynde’s you would follow into the nearest bar. A street-chic strut full of sass, she displays this nowhere better than here, on the Pretenders’s breakthrough, third single. MR Listen on Spotify

Loaded

Primal Scream

1991

Willowy flower children Primal Scream found their very purpose rebooted when they asked Andrew Weatherall to remix their track I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have. He removed the vocal, spun it round a drum loop from an Italian bootleg remix of Edie Brickell’s What I Am and factored in a sample from Peter Fonda flick The Wild Angels. A countercultural classic was born, and Primal Scream’s fate would be sealed as the gold standard for raving rockers. DM Listen on Spotify

1999

Prince

1983

Prince Rogers Nelson had already released four albums, but 1999 was the big breakthrough that made him an international star. The title track – and lead single – was a funky dancefloor and MTV smash hit, ping-pong percussion and synths blaring like the horns of Jericho as the diminutive one announces, “I got a lion in my pocket/ And baby he’s ready to roar.” CC Listen on Spotify

Let’s Go Crazy

Prince

1984

As unequivocal a directive to party as it’s possible to get. Let’s Go Crazy kicks off fantasy rock opera Purple Rain with a tongue-in-cheek tribute to “this thing called life”, before declaring “sod this” and transforming into a riot of electronic funk. It’s Prince’s most perfectly packed pop moment, with the man casting himself as a self-help Lord of the Dance, spitting out motivational messages with a vigour that it would be stupid to ignore. DM Listen on Spotify

Out of Space

The Prodigy

1992

In August 1992, Mixmag published an article accusing the Prodigy of killing rave with their debut single, Charly. The children’s TV sample had inspired a glut of second-rate copycat tunes and clubland was becoming increasingly infantile. The band’s response was to raise rave from the dead with Out of Space. Bleeping synths and a rumbling breakbeat precede a sample of Max Romeo’s 1976 roots reggae song I Chase the Devil. The other vocal sample, “I’ll take your brain to another dimension” – nicked from hip-hop pioneers Ultramagnetic MCs – was no idle boast. CC Listen on Spotify

Hit the Bongo

Tito Puente

1968

By 1968, Tito Puente was no longer the Afro-Cuban dance king, with a younger generation of Nuyoricans taking his beats and mixing them with funk and garage rock. The resulting hybrid (boogaloo) became so big that Puente decided to have a go himself. Based around an eight-note bassline and a thrilling horn fanfare, this song became the centrepiece of his live set – and would be later sampled to death by hip-hop producers. JL

Sorted for Es and Wizz

Pulp

1995

The ultimate after-the-Britpop-party anthem, as Jarvis Cocker and co steal the melody of Leo Sayer’s Moonlighting and define the dark side of drugs, festivals and coming down. The Mirror got itself in a tizz about the single sleeve that explained how to make a drug wrap, but if they’d listened they would have heard one of the most despairing of all drug anthems, with its pensive acknowledgment that communal highs are always followed by private lows. GM Listen on Spotify

Now I’m Here

Queen

1974

This standout track from their finest album, Sheer Heart Attack, is a reminder that, beneath the music-hall whimsy and the operatic pretentions, Queen were also a fabulous heavy metal quartet. Here Brian May flits between chugging, Angus Young-style power chords and heavy blues riffage while the rest of the band belt out multi-tracked harmonies. As Queen started to conquer stadiums in the 80s, an echo-drenched, nine-minute call-and-response version would become the highlight of their live shows. JL Listen on Spotify

Feel Good Hit of the Summer

Queens of the Stone Age

2000

“Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol, C-C-C-C-C-cocaine!” So runs the entire lyric of this aptly titled single, on which veteran hellraiser and ex-Judas Priest singer Rob Halford guested. This mantra, bolstered by the California band’s trademark thrashy but compressed sound, was initially dismissed by the band’s label, but eventually released on the grounds that it wasn’t actually condoning drug abuse. The message isn’t exactly “just say no”, either. JP Listen on Spotify

House of Jealous Lovers

The Rapture

2002

Exhuming the post-punk experiments of PiL and the Pop Group, New York’s the Rapture created a punk-funk monster for their breakthrough 12-inch. The result of a collaboration between Tim Goldsworthy and LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, and with no real lyrics outside of the title, the group sadly never came close to topping this – a hypnotic fusion of dirty bass, disjointed guitar and flagrant cowbell abuse. CCat Listen on Spotify

All Night Long (All Night)

Lionel Richie

1983

Before blowing his credibility for good with the mawkish Hello, Richie delivered a sophisticated single that has proved timeless. Lionel’s first line, after some nifty percussion and a flurry of strings, makes this a perfect song for kick-starting a party – “Well, my friends, the time has come, to raise the roof and have some fun.” The song reaches a crescendo of Jamaican chanting that, though difficult to sing along to, cements its life-affirming quality. JB Listen on Spotify

Someday

Ce Ce Rogers

1987

Maybe it was MDMA-induced empathy, but when house music exploded in the late 80s it really felt like it could change the world. Cleveland singer Kenneth Jesse Rogers III and house music pioneer Marshall Jefferson summed up the egalitarian mood on Someday. “If we can just open our eyes / We can make the world a paradise,” sang Rogers over minor piano chords. On the dancefloor of clubs such as The Hacienda in Manchester it felt, briefly, like paradise had already arrived. CC

Witness (1 Hope)

Roots Manuva

2001

Rodney Smith’s party-starter has become one of the few UK hip-hop tracks to gain status outside of the narrow confines of that scene. Smith is on record as saying he wanted to make something that translated in clubs with “a shit system and pissed-up people”, and its wild, cranked-up bassline certainly transferred. Possibly the biggest sound ever achieved by UK hip-hop. EW Listen on Spotify

Virginia Plain

Roxy Music

1972

When art-school freaks Roxy Music accompanied this, their non-album debut single, on Top of the Pops they were the weirdest sight to date witnessed on the programme (Sparks wasn’t until 1974). An odd ditty, with no chorus and a perpetually disorientating clarinet line, its unusual production and mindblowing keyboard break were the first evidence of group member Brian Eno’s sonic capabilities. MR Listen on Spotify

Car Wash

Rose Royce

1976

The soundtrack to blaxploitation comedy Car Wash offered former Motown composer/producer Norman Whitfield the chance to make Rose Royce stars. He took it with the most famous handclaps in pop history. Ebullient big-band disco led by the diva vocals of Rose Norwalt, it’s a girls’ anthem because, in a more subtle way than Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, it neatly sums up the highs and lows of work, where the daily grind is made bearable by the camaraderie. GM Listen on Spotify

Once You Get Started

Rufus featuring Chaka Khan

1974

If it were possible to entirely power sound systems on happiness (and clearly it is not), then Once You Get Started might be the appropriate fuel. Co-written by Chicago stalwart Gavin Christopher (who also co-wrote his sister Shawn Christopher’s sole hit Don’t Lose the Magic), it is given wonderous life by Chaka Khan’s effortless voice. It’s not the best song she ever did but it’s the most fun. “Once you get started/ Oh it’s hard to stop.” Can’t argue with that. BB Listen on Spotify

Baby Let’s Dance Together

Sapan Chakraborty

1978

The 1978 Hindi movie Shalimar might have flopped but its soundtrack album remains a highly collectable favourite with freak-funk fans. This crazy slice of big-band r’n’b – all wobbly drums and lip-smacking horn riffs – is a perfect example of how Bollywood’s music directors (in this case RD Burman’s assistant) would take western pop idioms (jazz, funk, soul, disco) and put them through an exotic eastern prism in one of Bombay’s ramshackle recording studios. JL

Runaway

Salsoul Orchestra

1977

At disco clubs the opening guitar of this singalong favourite is a call to arms to anyone not yet on the dancefloor. Sung by Loleatta Holloway and backed by a sizeable number of the SO/MFSB staple players, the lyrics see the former soul diva revelling in the position her carefree, unattached status enables. It was covered virtually note for note by Masters at Work’s Nuyorican Soul project in the 1990s. MR

The Bottle

Gil Scott-Heron

1974

A rare protest tune that delivered its message on site, as it were, railing against the dangers of drink over a jazz-funk beat that tore up UK clubs from the northern soul meccas to London’s rare groove scene. The Bottle’s cast of characters (prison widow, discharged backstreet abortionist) are all skid-row alcoholics, portraits drawn with a journalist’s eye by the poet-singer. The lyrical vérité makes for an odd party anthem, demonstrating how little people are engaged with the words when their bodies are in motion. SY Listen on Spotify

Happy

Max Sedgley

2003

It was the sound of Glastonbury 2003 and it came out of nowhere. Based around a simple Eddie Kendricks sample, a monstrous bassline and some judiciously programmed drums, it swiftly went from underground clubs to the theme for ITV’s Euro 2004 coverage. Apparently Max is a drummer – and it shows in this guaranteed dancefloor damager. Happy indeed. BB Listen on Spotify

On My Radio

Selector

1979

Peers of fellow Coventry band and 2 Tone ska purveyors the Specials, Selector fared less well in terms of number of hit singles, but outlasted Terry Hall and Jerry Dammers’s band by a country mile. Their second single and first as a solo entity, On My Radio is one of the best songs from the whole ska revivalist movement, has been mangled and sampled by Basement Jaxx and remains a much-requested rude-boy anthem. MR Listen on Spotify

Let the Music Play

Shannon

1983

This benchmark dance-pop hit marked the highpoint of a forgotten genre called Latin freestyle. By injecting a hint of Latin rhythm and some extraordinarily complex drum programming into the New York electro pioneered by producers Arthur Baker and John Robie, writers/producers Chris Barbosa, Ed Chisolm and Mark Liggett reinvented disco at a stroke. The song was great, too; a moody diva melding of dance and sex sung by Washington DC jazz chanteuse Shannon with just the right hint of desperation. GM Listen on Spotify

Begin the Beguine

Artie Shaw

1938

Cole Porter’s witty ballroom classic – which served to popularise an obscure Caribbean dance – was first used in a 1935 musical but received its definitive version three years later at the hands of bandleader Artie Shaw and arranger Jerry Gray. Shaw’s sweet-and-sour clarinet solo seems to float over the insistent chug of the big band, and the record became such a hit that it turned the capriciously grumpy Shaw into a reluctant superstar. JL Listen on Spotify

Dat

Pluto Shervington

1976

This jaunty, calypso-tinged Top 10 hit introduces Ozzy, a Rasta who’s too slack to observe Rastafarianism’s vegetarian dietary code. He is embarrassed at the market when the butcher boy offers him meat (“Hush your mouth, mind me brethren hear”) before furtively asking for a pork chop, euphemistically described as “dat”. This “Carry On Rasta” scenario is continued as Ozzy hides the meat in his hat before bumping into a rather more observant Dread on the way home. JL

Gin House Blues

Nina Simone

1975

Nina always could start a fight in an empty room. Her cover of this 1925 blues song (best heard on her 1975 Paris live album) makes the drunkard’s bragging seem like a mix of Dutch courage and stroppy militancy (she could’ve fought the army and the navy without the benefit of booze). It also has staying power, almost doubling the length of the song as Nina and her band keep swinging punches. SY Listen on Spotify

Lost in Music

Sister Sledge

1979

The major works of disco geniuses Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic were always double-edged celebrations of dancing. They gave several of their greatest songs to Philly sisters Kathy, Kim, Debbie and Joni Sledge, and on the surface, Lost in Music is a loving tribute to making music. But the chorus is in a troubled minor key, and the lyrical imagery of losing everything including sanity and being permanently “caught in a trap” is hardly the stuff of dreams. GM Listen on Spotify

He’s the Greatest Dancer

Sister Sledge

1979

This Chic-composed and produced disco hit is a gay anthem that just happens to be sung by women. She’s out “cruising” with friends in “Frisco”? She spots a guy who has the body of Adonis and a face “that would make any man proud”? This guy has the moves and the designer threads … but never even notices our heroine? Typical Edwards/Rodgers disco subversion, full of elegant ideas like the perfect man being full of “arrogance – but not conceit”. GM Listen on Spotify

I Wish

Skee-Lo

1995

Emerging into a hip-hop world increasingly preoccupied with self-aggrandisement and gangster posturing, Skee-Lo was something of an anomaly. Referencing Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth and concerned chiefly with being a short-arse who can’t pull, I Wish harked back to the good-time rap of A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. Fourteen years on its laid-back grooves and self-deprecating humour still raise a smile. CCat

Dance to the Music

Sly and the Family Stone

1968

Dance to the Music was the ideal introduction to Sylvester Stewart’s rainbow coalition, a democratic calling card that gave everyone their say while stressing the primacy of the unit. But Dance to the Music mixed more than genders and races, blending rock, pop, jazz and funk with psychedelic soul, a sound that inspired much of the best music of the next half-decade. Despite Sly’s dominance, pride of place here goes to trumpeter Cynthia Robinson, who bellows the title as introductory command and later tells all the squares to go home. SY Listen on Spotify

Nite Klub

The Specials

1979

Suggesting the best refuge from rising unemployment and approaching Thatcherism was to go on the lash, Nite Klub proved the Specials were equally adept at storming Stax soul musicianship as they were at amphetamine-fuelled ska. Ever the curmudgeon, however, Terry Hall refused to join in the fun – “the girls are slags and the beer tastes just like piss”. Improbably, an even more thrilling version can be found on 1981’s live Dance Craze LP. CCat Listen on Spotify

You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)

Sylvester

1978

Formerly a member of ramshackle, San Fransisco-based transvestite performance troupe the Cockettes (who at one time also counted Divine among their number), sizeable singer Sylvester had already released some great soul, funk and rock records by 1978, but success eluded him until he upped the tempo considerably and focused on disco. Speedy yet subtle, his biggest hit served as a template for the hi-NRG disco sound and was memorably performed, in part, at half-speed during live shows by Syl and formidable backing singers Two Tons of Fun. MR Listen on Spotify

(Under Mi) Sleng Teng

Wayne Smith

1985

The lyrics refer to small wraps of sinsemilla sold by dealers (“sleng teng” a corruption of “selling thing”). Yet, for all the sermonising against harder drugs (“No cocaine/ I don’t wanna go insane”), the song’s electronic backing points towards the paranoid, cocaine-fuelled future of Jamaican music, all mesmeric drums and synthetic basslines. The same digital loop (provided by a Casio MT-40) would be used on hundreds of ragga tracks, but none as well as this. JL Listen on Spotify

How Soon Is Now?

The Smiths

1985

In retrospect, the Smiths’ sixth single seems an unlikely party record. Johnny Marr’s keening guitar paired with Morrissey’s despondent vocal are anything but upbeat. But mid-80s indie clubs were about who was the most misunderstood, not having fun. The lines, “There’s a club if you’d like to go/ You could meet somebody who really loves you/ So you go and you stand on your own/ And you leave on your own/ And you cry and you want to die”, captured the mood perfectly. Remember, this was before ecstasy. CC

Memorabilia

Soft Cell

1982

In 1982, following the success of their synth-pop cover of Tainted Love by Gloria Jones, Soft Cell travelled to New York, where they met Cindy Ecstasy, a face on the city’s club scene who introduced them to the drug of the same name. The lads from Leeds were smitten and recorded the mini-album Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing under its influence. The driving bassline and nagging synth buzz on opening track Memorabilia anticipated house music four years later. If only they hadn’t let Cindy rap. CC Listen on Spotify

Beat the Clock

Sparks

1979

After expressing admiration for disco producer Giorgio Moroder’s innovative work on Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, oddball brothers Ron and Russell Mael were teamed up with him for their revitalising No 1 In Heaven album, which produced this gameshow-inspired hit single. “Too bad there ain’t 10 of you, then I’d show you what I’d do,” mocks Russell over a metronomic, hi-NRG-edged disco rhythm that still sounds fresh, and for Sparks, unusually accessible. MR

I’m a Man

The Spencer Davis Group

1967

The final single for the Spencer Davis Group prior to brothers Muff and Steve Winwood, the latter the group’s singer and chief songwriter, leaving the band. An uncompromisingly tough and fast-paced beat number, its percussion builds intensely before the stirring Hammond organ line crashes in. It was famously given a proto-heavy metal workout by Chicago on their debut album. MR Listen on Spotify

Young Hearts Run Free

Candi Staton

1976

Few songs encapsulate the last days of disco spirit like Candi Staton’s tour de force. Beneath the euphoric sheen of this hen-night staple lies a story of near intolerable sadness. As beats and horns spiral around her, Staton’s desperate housewife serenades a younger generation from the confines of a loveless marriage. Make as much hay as you can, she implores them, because the sun won’t shine for long. DM Listen on Spotify

Sueño Latino

Sueño Latino

1989

Manuel Göttsching’s 1984 album E2-E4 repeated one bubbling synth riff for 59 minutes. Far from being boring, it was an ambient masterpiece. It became a Balearic favourite thanks to DJ Alfredo (him again). Then, in 1989, Italian DJ collective Sueño Latino lifted the track’s hypnotic hook and added a house beat and some breathy vocals from Carolina Damas. Thus the Balearic sound went global. Ex-ravers of a certain age still get watery eyed when they hear the opening bird call. CC

Saturday Nite Special

The Sundown Playboys

1972

Released on the Beatles’ Apple label, this manic slice of Cajun zydeco is performed by an outfit who’ve been making manic party music since 1945, singing in the archaic dialect known as Acadian French. The eerily androgynous, high-pitched yodelling vocals on this track – belted out at top volume to make themselves heard above the sound of the accordion and fiddle – have been cited by Morrissey as a key influence. JL

Wipe Out

The Surfaris

1962

One of those happy pop accidents, whereby Surfaris members Bob Berryhill, Pat Connolly, Ron Wilson and Jim Fuller hastily threw together a tune intended as a B-side and ended up with one of rock’s most enduring classics. A punk-tempo surf-guitar instrumental illuminated by Wilson’s high-speed drum tattoo, it introduced itself with the sound of a surfboard breaking and a manic male voice giggling excitedly and girlishly announcing the title. Said voice belonged to Surfaris’ manager Dale Smallen. GM Listen on Spotify

Rapper’s Delight

The Sugarhill Gang

1979

Having a DJing nightmare? Dead dancefloor and you need a pee and a fag? Cue up the full, 14-minute version of the first hip-hop hit single and leave the party to take care of itself. Based on the backing track of Good Times by Chic and rapped by three dodgy MCs borrowing heavily from the early Bronx rhymes of street-party pioneers such as the Cold Crush Brothers, Rapper’s Delight is still the best party rap tune of all time. GM Listen on Spotify

Do What You Wanna Do

T-Connection

1977

Nassau’s greatest export – alongside Beginning of the End – produced one of disco’s great feel-good records. The vocal, squeezed into the first third of the song, is over before the main course arrives in the form of a series of stupendous breaks accompanied by keyboards slaloming off-piste, punctuated by a joyous “woo” or two before the mayhem resumes. Woo! BB Listen on Spotify

Shout

Tears for Fears

1984

Regarded by many as a somewhat pretentious synth band from the new-wave school, things were about to change radically for Tears for Fears upon the release of their highly considered departure and huge-selling second album, Songs from the Big Chair. You wouldn’t have guessed, though, from the release of preceding and protesting single Shout, a powerful but basic synth anthem favoured by Balearic DJs such as Alfredo in the 80s. MR Listen on Spotify

Cloud Nine

The Temptations

1968

The Temptations never really got the psychedelic direction producer Norman Whitfield pushed them in – photos at the time make them look like extras in a comedy about undercover narcs – but they could more than handle the music. With its wah-wah guitar, bolder instrumentation and risque drug themes (hotly denied, of course), Cloud Nine is a masterpiece. This was the start of Motown part two, the road that led away from Baby Love, towards What’s Going On and Living for the City. SY Listen on Spotify

Great DJ

The Ting Tings

2008

Mancunian pair Katie White and Jules DeMartino returned to Ancoats with tails between legs after their first stab at pop stardom went pop. They stayed in and threw parties and made demos at home, since none of the artistic types with whom they lived could afford to go out. The resulting sessions, as their first single reveals, gave them the confidence to begin anew and forge a frothy masterpiece wherein the strings go “eee eee eee eee eee”. DM Listen on Spotify

Disco Inferno

The Trammps

1976

This incendiary dance anthem had already been a disco hit before gaining inclusion on the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever. Written by Leroy Green and Ron “Have Mercy” Kersey, it’s one of the best examples of the Philadelphia soul/disco sound … all post-Motown uptempo rhythms, fiery gospel vocals and enormous orchestration. Its hook, “burn baby, burn!”, came from a DJ catchphrase that emerged during the US race riots of the mid- and late-60s. GM Listen on Spotify

A Punk

Vampire Weekend

2008

One of the most annoying and therefore also one of the most memorable singles released in recent years, this very fast offering from the Afro-pop infatuated New York youngsters literally sorts the men from the boys, as anyone over the age of 24 would look completely daft attempting to pogo to its insistent guitars, mock flutes and feral yelps. MR Listen on Spotify

Me and Baby Brother

War

1973

They might have been the cleverest and most musically gifted of the funk-rock outfits to emerge around the end of the 1960s, but War’s finest three minutes is this joyously dumb dancefloor favourite. Based around a minimal, two-note bassline, a nursery-rhyme chant and a Hammond organ stab at the climax of every bar, it genuinely sounds like a riot in a recording studio, a riot that’s being urgently investigated by the siren-like wails of their harmonica player. JL Listen on Spotify

Break Dance – Electric Boogie

West Street Mob

1983

Although Break Dance – Electric Boogie wasn’t the first old-school hip-hop record to dismember the Incredible Bongo Band’s take on Apache, it’s the most cherished for the way it blends the original’s crucial elements (bongo intro and brass fanfare) with the emerging electro. This amounted to little more than a vocoder delivering instruction in the way of the breakdance. But repeating “spin on your back, spin on your knees” in a robot’s voice was as much a part of the B-boy era as visits to the chiropractor. SY

My Generation

The Who

1965

In four chords and three minutes, My Generation neatly encapsulates the attitude of every teenage wave of the past 40 years. It transcends its own modish origins by being completely non-specific to any particular time, place or youth movement; punks, indie kids and emos can all revel in its two-fingered sentiment. A prime example of a song that, once released, no longer belongs to the band, but to The Kids. JP Listen on Spotify

Last Night Changed It All

Esther Williams

1976

It’s no fun being dumped, but you get over it eventually. This song by little-known 70s soul/disco singer Esther Williams is about the precise moment you realise it’s all going to be OK. Lush strings glide over a drum break that’s been sampled by Public Enemy, Eric B and Rakim and De La Soul, while Williams sings the chorus, “Last night changed it all/ I really had a ball,” like she’s gone straight from the club to the studio following her epiphany. CC Listen on Spotify

(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher

Jackie Wilson

1967

Originally unable to nail the vocal track, Wilson was instructed by producer Carl Davis to “jump and go along with the percussion”. It worked a treat. In perhaps the most joyous two and a half minutes ever committed to tape, Wilson – backed by members of the Funk Brothers – builds Higher and Higher up into a crescendo of gospel-inspired ecstasy, capturing the optimism and seemingly endless possibilities of new-found love. CCat

Turn Off the Lights

Larry Young

1975

Originally released in 1975, Larry Young’s tune became an unlikely warehouse anthem during the rare groove era. Propelled by a growling bassline, Linda Logan’s maniacal vocal and what sounded like a toddler tap-dancing on a Stylophone (Young was the keyboard player), Turn Off the Lights was that rare beast: a jazz-fusion tune you could actually dance to. BB Listen on Spotify